Vinay Palathinkal: SE Asia Fintech, Last Mover Advantage & Compounding Relationships - E159

Vinay Palathinkal is Regional Head, Wise Platform at Wise. Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise is a leader in cross border money movement, processing nearly $100 billion every year and employing 2300 people across 14 global offices. Wise Platform is the third and newest pillar of Wise’s products, allowing platforms like Google Pay and banks like Monzo to integrate and benefit from Wise’s powerful global payments infrastructure. Previously, Vinay was Director, USA, at Arcus, a Y Combinator and a16z backed payments fintech based in NYC, focused on lending and merchant payment processing across Latin America and USA. Vinay helped Arcus scale its processing volume to $1B annually, a 1000x year on year increase. Vinay runs a SEA-focused angel investment syndicate, Fintech Angel Operators, with Chia Jeng Yang (Principal, Saison Capital) and Keng Low (Founder, Finantier) and Rachael Defoe (Founder, RDF Strategies). He likes writing about fintech in SEA in his weekly newsletter called Island Fintech Weekly, and he writes long-form ‘think’ pieces on his personal website. Vinay studied at NUS and NYU, plays in a band on the weekends and is a cycling and fitness enthusiast. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/vinay-palathinkal You can find the community discussion for this episode at: https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/vinay-palathinkal